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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667566">to find me standing barefoot at your side</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pale_Blue/pseuds/Pale_Blue'>Pale_Blue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Bit Self-Indulgent, Angst, Brothers, Canon Divergence - Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Dysfunctional Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Siblings, The Statesman, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Thor Has Issues, a bit of angst, everyone is a little bit of a mess, family conversations are hard, mentions of suicidal ideation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:02:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pale_Blue/pseuds/Pale_Blue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I often dream of falling,” Loki said suddenly, drawing his legs up slightly as if he wanted to pull them into his chest, curl up and make himself small. “I fall and I fall and when I wake I am no longer certain if I have truly stopped.”</p><p>“The Statesman will not fall, Loki, it will carry us to Midgard and then you will be safe from any falling.” Thor said, unsure where this conversation was heading and painfully aware that he could not pull his brother’s thoughts from it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to find me standing barefoot at your side</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't usually write anything for the MCU, and I am not as familiar with it. So there is a high chance I have made some mistakes here in that regard. But I was rewatching Ragnarok the other day and I just love the relationship between Thor and Loki. It's so complex and this is a very self-indulgent fic about what could have maybe happened after Ragnarok had it not been for the beginning of Infinity War. </p><p>Title is from the song Forest Fire by Brighton.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In his nightmares Thor watched the destruction of Asgard over and over. He lay on the Bifrost, Mjolnir’s weight pressing his ribs into his lungs while the inky sky above turned to a raging, burning inferno and Surtur’s shouts drowned out his screams as he is pressed into the Bifrost, unable to move Mjolnir, no longer worthy enough to stop it snapping his ribs. The fire above him roared before swallowing him whole, searing his skin from his bones-</p><p>Thor woke with a gasped scream, drenched in sweat and clawing desperately at his chest to remove the weapon that had once been so much a part of himself. After the deafening crackling of the fire his room seemed too silent, too empty. His too quick breaths were loud as explosions in the silence which is so heavy he could almost feel it settling around his chest, a heavy weight stopping his lungs from filling and all he could think about was the flames, raging hot and angry –</p><p>Thor pulled himself to a sitting position and pushed a slightly shaking hand through his now shorter hair. He forgot about it sometimes and the feel of the unevenly cropped hair against his palm still felt strange and foreign, as though he was not really touching his own head but that of a stranger.</p><p>The corridor was cooler than his room and he welcomed the change, only now noticing how warm his room had been. The floor was comfortingly cool beneath his bare feet. </p>
<hr/><p>The lower levels of the Statesman were made up of several cavernous rooms. The refugees on the ship had not yet ventured away from the hold which was currently serving as a dining hall and healing room, or their own rooms, which they been divided up into as fairly as possible. The dark spaces down below, where there was no light and every breath seemed to echo, appeared to be too frightening a prospect for now. But Thor wanted to walk without having to tiptoe and worry about every creak of the floor waking a sleeping child or an anxious mother. He wanted a little distance, a dark space where the thoughts of fire would be inconceivable. So he headed down the dark stairs and started to make his way to the back of the ship, where he knew the rooms at least has windows. Some childish part of him wanted to make sure the emptiness through which they were floating was still dark and starlit, not the roaring blaze of his nightmares.</p><p>He went into the first open door he saw, which led to one of the large rooms which seemed too large to be comforting and froze when he looked over at the large window on the far side. Sitting with his back against the wall and staring out into the infinite darkness outside, was Loki. His long legs were stretched out, head leaning back against the wall. He had to have heard Thor come in, Thor couldn’t recall the last time he had successfully been able to sneak up on his younger sibling, but he had not moved to acknowledge Thor’s presence or to leave.</p><p>In the strange silver light provided by the stars, Loki looked utterly unlike himself. His bright eyes looked sliver and his pale skin seemed to glow slightly, a light in the long shadows of the room and striking next to his dark hair. He hadn’t moved his gaze from the emptiness from which they were only separated by a single pane of glass. Loki was very close to the window, his right leg was almost touching it and Thor fought down the sudden urge to grab his arm and pull him back from it so he wouldn’t fall, so he wouldn’t be able to let go like he had last time.</p><p>“Do you come here every night?” he asked carefully, wincing slightly internally at how loud his voice seemed in the stillness.</p><p>Loki turned to him, silvery eyes narrowing slightly and Thor could practically see the gears turning in his mind, could see him trying to locate a trap in his question. He looked tired. The shadows beneath his eyes were beginning to swell, giving him the appearance of someone ill, someone who was old and dying. His pale features looked grey, almost as grey as when he had died on Svartalfheim.</p><p>“Perhaps,” he answered carefully. “My sleep is…troubled, one could say,”</p><p>He turned suddenly to Thor, a movement that would have once been as fluid and graceful as that of a snake but now seemed jerky, disjointed.</p><p>“You see it in your sleep,” he said, eyes searching over Thor’s face as though he was trying to see straight through his skull to his thoughts. “Ragnarok.”</p><p>It was not a question, merely a statement and Thor did not see any point in disagreeing with it when it was so evidently true. Instead he gave a quick nod and settled down on the floor opposite Loki, further from the window but close enough to be able to look his brother in the eyes. He noticed, with a sharp jolt of concern, that Loki had lost weight. He had never been particularly solid but now his wrists looked frail and his jaw seemed sharper than Thor remembered. Loki shifted uncomfortably under his worried gaze and Thor too turned his head to look out of the window.</p><p>“You did always like high up places,” Thor says quietly.</p><p>Loki’s seeking out of high vantage points had been their mother’s nightmare when they had been younger. Loki had always wanted to climb higher, reach for the branch Thor was too afraid to scale and perch on it like a sparrow. He had climbed the golden roof of the palace and basked in the heat of the summer sunshine while the birds had swooped around him. Thor could remember his dark hair whipping in the wind, his laughter while Thor had shouted for him to come down from a window far below. He was often punished for his escapades, but he had continued to seek higher and higher places. Until he had fallen from the greatest height of all, hand letting go of Gungnir to fall into nothing-</p><p>Loki looked at him strangely, questioningly and Thor quickly pulled his expression back into something more neutral.</p><p>“It is only from a distance that everything can be seen,” Loki said quietly. “When one is high up it is easier to forget the connection to the world below. And here there is no world left to see.”</p><p>Something in his calmness put Thor’s teeth on edge and he once again stopped himself from suggesting that they move back from the window. The glass barrier between them and the darkness outside seemed to be growing thinner and more fragile by the minute.</p><p>“We will have to make a stop soon, our food stocks are already diminishing at a more rapid pace than I had hoped.” Thor replied, cautiously. “Soon you will again be able to feel solid ground beneath your feet.”</p><p>“I often dream of falling,” Loki said suddenly, drawing his legs up slightly as if he wanted to pull them into his chest, curl up and make himself small. “I fall and I fall and when I wake I am no longer certain if I have truly stopped.”</p><p>“The Statesman will not fall, Loki, it will carry us to Midgard and then you will be safe from any falling.” Thor said, unsure where this conversation was heading and painfully aware he could not pull his brother’s thoughts from it.</p><p>“Not even you could stop it falling Thor. Not even your strength can halt what is inevitable.” Loki answered, a strangely fearful quality to his voice that Thor had not heard before.</p><p>But his face remained devoid of emotion, turned still toward the window and the darkness outside. Above them something creaked, the sound seeming offensive and loud in the stillness of the room. Thor had a suspicion they were not truly talking of the Statesman. But the alternative was difficult and edging into shadowy territory that Thor did not want to navigate or understand.</p><p>“I really tried to catch you that day, Loki. I would never throw you into any abyss and I hope, truly, that you know that,” he said, trying and failing to ignore the feeling of heaviness snaking through his thoughts at the memory of Loki’s hand releasing from Gungnir. The peaceful expression on his face as he had fallen into the vast nothing stretching eternally on and on and on.</p><p>“I know that now, I think. The memory is blurred, and I do not have the strength to untangle it.” Loki said softly.</p><p>Thor did not comment on that. He did not know what to say.</p><p>“I think I have always thought of falling,” he almost whispered, and it seemed that he was speaking more to himself than he was to Thor. “I cannot remember a time when it was not in lurking behind my thoughts, when I did not wonder if it might be the easier option.”</p><p>“Loki…” Thor said hesitantly, unsure, trying to ignore the feeling of walking across a frozen lake, where any misstep can cause the ice to crack and the icy water to rush through.</p><p>“You have always known it, Thor. And I have too. It was inevitable that it would, at some point, come to pass.”</p><p>When Loki looked at Thor, he was startled to see the beginnings of tears in his brother’s silvery eyes. There was hurt there, and Thor wished that Frigga would walk through the door behind them and know exactly what to do.</p><p>Because Loki was, at least in some regards, speaking the truth. He had been a melancholy child, his thoughts at times so dark and strange that they had frightened Thor. There had been times where Thor had been uncertain whether to laugh or be concerned by his darker humour, often aimed at himself. He could recall his brother hiding strange bruises that seemed to have no origin, reading books on twisted subjects that made his mother worry and have them removed from the sections of the library Loki could access. There had always been something slightly darker about Loki, and when it had come out, in the rare events when he lost control of his emotions, it was frightening. But Thor had never thought it would spiral into what it had, prompted by the pain of finding out of his true heritage as it had been. He never would have thought that Loki, clever, witty Loki, would allow himself to fall as far as he had.</p><p>“You were hurting, from everything our father had told you. You were not thinking clearly –“ Thor tried to answer, fumbling, clumsy and feeling like the child he had once been.</p><p>“Your father,” Loki interjected, but there was no bite in his voice, only exhaustion.</p><p>“Then what of mother?” Thor challenged, aware in the back of his mind that he was crossing some kind of line between them, that he shouldn’t be bringing up Frigga now but the words were out in the space in between them and what would happen as a result of them was up to Loki.</p><p>“I do not wish to talk about mother,” he answered, with the same weariness. “I do not wish to talk about any of it. I only wish for you to stop trying to make him into something he never was.”</p><p>There was a pleading in his eyes, dejection. Loki never backed down from an argument with Thor. Loki never tried to make it stop before it begun. Loki enjoyed tricking Thor with his words, enjoyed watching Thor blunder around in the arguments he spun around him until he was so confused that he had to yield and ask for some sort of explanation. Silvertongue.</p><p>Thor exhaled heavily. This new, almost passive Loki bothered him.</p><p>“I think I always knew, deep down.” Loki said quietly, warily. A confession.</p><p>“Knew what?” Thor asked, just as quietly. He shuffled forward ever so slightly, didn't look at the window, didn't think about the emptiness all around them</p><p>“That I didn’t truly belong on Asgard,” he answered. “Maybe I did not suspect the specifics. But I think that deep down I always knew, just as I knew that one day the fall would come.”</p><p>“But you do belong. Your place is here, as it always has been. You’re my brother, Loki, and nothing can ever change that and you can renounce father all you wish but you are still the only family I have left. And I will not let you fall again. I promise,” Thor said desperately, wishing he could express to Loki how much he cared in a more eloquent fashion, hoping Loki would not reject him the way he had father.</p><p>“Promises are for children,” Loki answered, a raw and jagged edge in his voice.</p><p>“I promise anyway.”</p><p>A silvery tear rolled its way slowly down Loki’s cheek and Thor shuffled forward awkwardly, uncertain. It had been so long since they had so easily shown emotions around one another. He pulled Loki towards him, pulling his dark head onto his shoulder and he could feel Loki’s thin shoulders shaking as he tried not to release the tears that he had been holding on to for far too long.</p><p>Loki had always been slippery where Thor had been solid, his thoughts seemingly a waterfall that took him wildly to places Thor dared not follow lest he drown. His brother’s mind had always moved rapidly, had always leapt from idea to idea, able to take in and store anything he took an interest in. He felt fragile in his arms and Thor felt so utterly helpless against the turmoil in his brother’s mind, the turmoil that had always been there below the surface and had broken everything apart when it had crashed free.</p><p>“I’m sorry about father,” Loki breathed into his shoulder, voice shaky with emotion, “I truly am sorry.”</p><p>Thor did not answer but instead moved his head to rest against his brothers, feeling his longer hair against his cheek, suddenly oddly aware once again of his own far shorter hair. He suddenly felt tired. So tired. His family was splintered and gone and so was everything he had known. He did not want to think about his broken family or the deep betrayals that had hurt him more than he cared to acknowledge either to himself or to Loki. He just wanted to sleep and wake up with some sort of secure knowledge that everything would maybe alright and not as raw and painful as it seemed now.</p><p>But Loki was here and even if everything was wrong and their whole world had been knocked completely out of orbit, even if Loki was clearly still more troubled than Thor had assumed and even though he himself had yet to sleep more than a few hours without his sleep being disturbed by fires and hammers, this was a beginning. A shaky beginning, an uncertain beginning, but still a beginning.</p><p>It was still enough to hold on to.</p>
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